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"Perkins' report offers a dizzying list of data the TikTok app can access while it's running, including the device location, calendar, contacts, other running applications, wi-fi networks, phone number and even the SIM card serial number. He concludes: For the TikTok application to function properly, most of the access and device data collection is not required. This leads us to believe that the only reason this information has been gathered is for data harvesting. It is also notable that the device only needs to ask the user for permission to perform each of these actions once and then follow the user's preferences. The application however has a culture of persistent access or continuously asking for a decision reversal by the user. The hourly checking of location is also unnecessary. Finally, device mapping, external storage access, contacts and third-party applications data collection allows TikTok the ability to reimage the phone in the likeness of the original device."

"Have you been looking forward to somniferous alkaloid compounds customized to your personal metabolic dependency profile? Good news! 23andMe is selling everyone's DNA to the pharmaceutical industry. GSK Plc will pay 23andMe Holding Co. $20 million for access to the genetic-testing company's vast trove of consumer DNA data, extending a five-year collaboration that's allowed the drugmaker to mine genetic data as it researches new medications."

"Can AI and analytics be used in a way that improves operational efficiency without jeopardizing our ethical principles? The answer is "yes" - if moral objectives and constraints, now often treated as an afterthought, are considered from the outset when designing models. We will discuss a recent attempt to combine ethics, analytics, and operational efficiency in the world of organ allocation and examine the lessons it holds for other areas of health care and beyond."

"But in internet time 2009 was aeons ago. Now, intensive surveillance is available to anyone. And you don't have to be a tech wizard to do it. In mid-January this year, Kashmir Hill, a talented American tech reporter, used three bits of everyday consumer electronics - Apple AirTags, Tiles and a GPS tracker - to track her husband's every move. He agreed to this in principle, but didn't realise just how many devices she had planted on him. He found only two of the trackers: a Tile he felt in the breast pocket of his coat and an AirTag in his backpack when he was looking for something else. "It is impossible to find a device that makes no noise and gives no warning," he said when she showed him the ones he missed."

"Officially, Venmo is an app for transferring money from one person to another. In the US, where most banks do not offer instant free money transfers, it was revolutionary for simple things like splitting the bill on dinner, or sending their roommates half of the rent. But because the Venmo app has a "home feed", an endless scroll that shows payments between users, it's also a sneaky form of social media. You can see how your friends spend their money - and who they spend it with."

"Disappearing messages is a feature offered by apps like Signal and WhatsApp, giving users the option to have conversations that self-destruct. They're not the only platforms that have tapped into the allure of digital ephemerality. The very premise of Snapchat is that content is only viewable for a short window; Instagram stories similarly vanish after 24 hours. Those who are chronically online may remember the last day of X's own foray into expiring content called "fleets", when countless users threw whatever remaining posting-caution they had to the wind to share revealing, horny or outright unhinged posts for one final hurrah before the feature itself vanished. I can't tell you what people posted or link you to evidence of this because, well, it's gone."

"National police agency says it is investigating 513 cases of deepfake pornography as a new scandal grips the country Raphael Rashid in Seoul and Justin McCurry in Tokyo Fri 13 Sep 2024 21.00 BST Share The anger was palpable. For the second time in just a few years, South Korean women took to the streets of Seoul to demand an end to sexual abuse. When the country spearheaded Asia's #MeToo movement, the culprit was molka - spy cams used to record women without their knowledge. Now their fury was directed at an epidemic of deepfake pornography."

"Anvi Ahuja noticed a "freaky" new text message from a number she didn't know right after getting back to her downtown Toronto apartment last month.  The text was a transcript of the conversation she'd just had with her roommates during their eight-minute Lyft ride home from a friend's place. "I was like 'who is tapping me?'" Ahuja said. "The driver didn't inform us that we could be recorded.""